Posts Tagged ‘Cumming photographer’

One of the more interesting, albeit understated, parts of being a photographer, are executive portraits.  They can be challenging, and most of the time, they push you both from a technical standpoint, and one of time-management.  In most instances, you will be very limited in the amount of time you have with your subject, and everything should, in a perfect world, go relatively perfectly, in terms of your execution.  Again, in a perfect world…

I had the opportunity to shoot another local attorney, Bill Dillon, that works in the fabulous Candler Building in downtown Atlanta.  It is one of ATL’s oldest buildings, and had a ton of spectacular architecture and character.  I shot in one of the upper floor offices (here) some time back, and I always wanted to shoot in the lobby also.  We were able to work it out this time, and tried not to make a spectacle of ourselves.

The lobby is relatively grand, especially with it’s ornate marble carved starcases, chandeliers, and, who could forget, the marble gargoyles.  I always thought that the staircase would make a striking background for a portrait, so we used it this time.  

We had shot in one of the offices earlier in the morning, and the lobby shots were going to need to be quick.  We had requested permission from the building management a day or two before, but, as we found out later, the building manager was on vacation in the Caribbean, so permission wasn’t going to happen.  Forgiveness over permission was going to have to be the rule of the day.  Luckily, the ‘stand-in’ for the manager was very nice, and was more curious about the shoot than she was concerned about us shooting there.  We had about 10 minutes to set up, and I needed every second of it.

This was a 4 light setup (all speedlights) with the key being a 28″ Wescott Appolo with a 1/2CTO, a bare speedlight with a grid for a rim, a bare speedlight in the background camera right to open up the shadows on the stairway landing, and a last bare speedlight in the background camera left to open up the shadows from the landing below.  The room was a mix of tungsten light (from the chandelier, and sconces throughout the room, and a ton of daylight coming in from both sides of the lobby.  I gelled the key with the CTO to bring the subject in line with the room, and left the rim and 2 background lights at 5600K for some color contrast.  I wasn’t going to be able to kill the daylight, and I kinda liked the feel of the more blue ambient in the room.

All in all we had a great time, and the subject really liked the final images.  Can’t wait to shoot here again!

Here is one taken a while back while shooting some footage near the Perimeter.  Have a great day!

Here’s a quick image of a Movado watch done some time ago.  Thanks Luigi for the watch!

While Kim and I were in Kiev, we had the opportunity to photograph a wonderful person named Karen Springs.   She works for an organization called Orphan’s Promise, and they provide assistance to orphanages throughout Ukraine.  She’s awesome.  She is also very knowledgeable about the adoption process there, so she helps families (like us) that are in Kiev to adopt.   Anyway, because there are so many places to shoot in Kiev, we decided to find some rockin’ streets in the Podol district.  It’s older, has a ton of character, and seems to be the area where all of the younger generations tends to haunt.  Here are some images from the shoot.  And gentlemen….she’s single.

You may or may not know this, but we love animals.  We have several.  They are fun, they make us laugh, and they love us no matter what stupid things we do (we love them too).  We have a lot of pets, 4 big dogs and 3 cats.  In the hierarchy of our ‘animal kingdom’, there is one Alpha….and her name is Macy.

Macy is Kim’s baby, raised from a pup, and coddled like no other.  She is a 9yr. old 75lb Husky/Malamute mix and is more of a cat than a dog.  She is impeccably clean (most of the time), much prefers to hunt her food (our squirrel and lizard population is nearly non-existent), and can do no wrong (in her mother’s eyes).   We love Macy.  She keeps her other ‘subjects’ in line and is clearly the Alpha….just ask her.

About 6 months ago, we noticed that Macy had a little irritation in one of her eyes, and was having trouble opening it all the way.  It is not unusual for the ‘street gang’ to get a bit too rough in the yard and one or more of them comes in injured (think midnight vet emergency room visits).  Nothing new.  SO, when we decided to take her in to our local vet, we didn’t expect anything unusual…maybe just a scratch that got inflamed or something.  Well, this time we weren’t so lucky.

The doctor looked at her eye and his suspicions were aroused very quickly.  He ran some tests, and it was confirmed that Macy had stage 5 Lymphoma. (Dogs apparently have 5 stages, unlike the 4 human stages.)  Lymphoma?  Not 30 days before, we had her in for a tooth extraction and they didn’t see anything.  Well, it was there now.  What does this mean?

We decided to start treatments for her and she is powering through like a champ.  She’s about 4 months into her chemo, and is doing great.   Same attitude, same intense wrestling matches in the yard, same lazy naps on my pillow,  (yes, my pillow) and we love her more than ever.   Here is a bit of eye candy of Miss Macy…